Chapter 1: The Last Single Friend

Paige Bennett knew happiness was supposed to look beautiful on people.

It did.

That was the problem.

It looked beautiful on Nora, who stood in the kitchen beside Elliot while he sliced a lemon with the quiet confidence of a man who had once taught her how not to ruin pastry and had somehow ended up teaching her how to be loved. Nora laughed at something he said, leaning against his shoulder like it was the most natural place in the world to rest.

It looked beautiful on Harper, who was barefoot near the record player, letting Mateo spin her once across Sophie’s living room while the others cheered. Harper’s face had that soft, stunned glow of a woman who had finally stopped apologizing for wanting romance.

It looked beautiful on Clara too, tucked into the corner of the sofa with Julian’s arm draped behind her, a glass of wine balanced carefully in her hand. She had become insufferably good at knowing which bottle to bring to every gathering, and worse, Julian looked at her like she was the only pairing that had ever made sense.

And then there was Sophie, who had hosted the whole thing in her little apartment above the pottery studio, surrounded by uneven handmade mugs, half melted candles, and Grant, who kept reaching for her hand like he still could not quite believe he was allowed to.

Paige was happy for them.

She was.

That was the sentence she kept repeating to herself while she stood near the appetizer table, eating a cracker with goat cheese and pretending she had not counted the couples twice.

Four couples.

One Paige.

She took another cracker.

“Careful,” Nora said, appearing beside her with a grin. “Those are Clara’s fancy crackers. I think they have emotional depth.”

“They taste like cardboard with ambition,” Paige said.

Clara looked over from the sofa. “I heard that.”

“I meant it as praise.”

Nora bumped Paige lightly with her shoulder. “You okay?”

Paige made her face do the thing it always did when someone asked that question. Light. Bright. Untouchable.

“Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”

Nora gave her a look.

Paige hated that look. It was the look women got after they fell in love. Suddenly they became experts in hidden sadness. They started noticing pauses, silences, fake smiles, the exact angle at which another woman held a wine glass when she was trying not to feel pathetic.

“I’m fine,” Paige said.

“That sounded rehearsed.”

“Everything I say sounds rehearsed. I’m charming under pressure.”

Nora laughed, but not enough to let it go. “You know you don’t have to be fine just because we’re all annoying now.”

“You are annoying,” Paige said. “Glowing everywhere. Touching hands near cheese boards. Smiling at each other across rooms. It’s honestly inconsiderate.”

Harper drifted closer, still flushed from dancing. “Are we being accused of happiness?”

“Yes,” Paige said. “And I have evidence.”

Sophie joined them, holding a mug that was visibly crooked but somehow adorable. “For the record, we love you.”

“That sounds like the beginning of an intervention.”

“It might be,” Clara said, rising from the sofa. “A gentle one.”

Paige looked at all four of them and felt something twist in her chest. They were trying to be kind. That made it worse.

She could handle pity if it came from someone cruel. She could make a joke out of it. She could sharpen herself against it.

But kindness made her feel exposed.

“I do not need an intervention,” Paige said. “I am single, not trapped under furniture.”

Nora smiled. “No one said trapped.”

“You all thought it.”

“We just think maybe you could try something new,” Harper said.

Paige pointed at her. “Absolutely not.”

“You don’t even know what I was going to suggest.”

“I know exactly what you were going to suggest. A class.”

The room went quiet for one guilty second.

Paige groaned. “I knew it.”

Sophie hid a smile behind her mug. “Classes have worked out pretty well around here.”

“For you,” Paige said. “Because you all apparently live inside a romantic comedy written by a very organized woman with a fondness for adult education.”

Nora lifted a finger. “Cooking classes can be very romantic.”

“You almost set something on fire.”

“And now I have a boyfriend.”

Harper shrugged. “Dance lessons changed my life.”

“You fell in love while counting steps out loud. That is not a repeatable business model.”

Clara raised her glass. “Wine class worked for me.”

“You learned how to say blackberry notes without sounding ridiculous. I respect that, but no.”

Sophie nodded toward the shelf where a row of small ceramic bowls sat in imperfect glory. “Pottery can be surprisingly intimate.”

“Sophie, you made a bowl that looked like it was asking for medical attention.”

Grant, from across the room, said, “It had character.”

“It had a limp,” Paige said.

Everyone laughed, and for a second Paige felt better. Comedy was useful that way. It let her stand near the truth without having to touch it.

Nora leaned against the counter. “So what’s your plan, then?”

“My plan?”

“For dating.”

Paige took a slow sip of wine. “My plan is to become mysteriously unavailable until love develops standards.”

“That’s not a plan,” Clara said.

“It has elegance.”

“It has no action steps.”

“I hate action steps.”

Nora tilted her head. “You used to love action steps.”

“Yes, and now all my action steps have led me to men who say they’re emotionally available because they once cried during a car commercial.”

Harper winced. “That bad?”

“Worse. One man told me he was looking for a deep connection and then asked if I had any friends who were less intimidating.”

Sophie gasped.

“Exactly,” Paige said. “And another one invited me to coffee, then spent forty minutes explaining intermittent fasting. Not as a topic. As a personality.”

Clara pressed a hand to her mouth. “No.”

“Yes.”

Nora’s expression softened. “Paige.”

There it was again. The careful voice. The kind one.

Paige looked away first.

“I’m tired,” she said before she could make it funny. “That’s all.”

The room shifted around her. Not dramatically. No one rushed to hug her. No one made a speech. They simply listened, and somehow that almost undid her.

She stared at the edge of the appetizer plate. “I’m happy for all of you. I really am. But it’s strange being the last one. It makes you feel like everyone else got called into another room and no one remembered to come back for you.”

No one spoke for a moment.

Then Nora reached for her hand and squeezed it.

Paige let her.

Only for a second.

Then she pulled away and picked up another cracker because vulnerability, in her opinion, should always be followed by cheese.

“I still refuse to take a class,” she said.

Harper smiled gently. “No dancing?”

“No dancing.”

Sophie lifted her mug. “No pottery?”

“Absolutely no pottery.”

Nora’s eyes sparkled. “No flour disasters?”

“I have seen what flour did to your dignity, and I want no part of it.”

Clara laughed. “Then what would work?”

Paige opened her mouth, ready with another joke, but nothing came out.

That was the frightening part. She did not know.

The gathering slowly moved on. Music played. Someone opened another bottle of wine. Elliot brought out something warm from the oven, because apparently he could not enter a room without improving it. Mateo and Harper argued playfully about whether a certain song counted as danceable. Grant helped Sophie clear plates. Julian listened to Clara talk about wine with the expression of a man who would happily learn an entire vineyard if it meant understanding her better.

Paige stood near the window and watched them all like a woman studying a language she used to know.

Love, she thought, had become embarrassingly visible.

It was in the way Elliot touched Nora’s lower back when he passed behind her. In the way Mateo watched Harper even when someone else was talking. In the way Julian refilled Clara’s glass before she noticed it was empty. In the way Grant took Sophie’s crooked mug from her hands and washed it carefully, as if even her flawed things deserved tenderness.

Paige wanted that.

The truth arrived plainly, without drama.

She wanted that so badly it made her chest ache.

Not a perfect man. Not a storybook life. Not someone to rescue her from loneliness.

Just someone who noticed. Someone who stayed. Someone who looked at her across an ordinary room and made the ordinary part feel less like proof that nothing was happening.

She turned from the window before her face could betray her.

That was when she saw the flyer.

It was half tucked beneath a stack of mail on Sophie’s little entry table, cream colored with dark green lettering and a small drawing of an open book at the top.

Paige picked it up.

Mercer & Page Books

Monthly Romance Book Club

This Month’s Selection: Love in the Margins

Tea, discussion, and dangerous opinions encouraged.

She stared at it.

A romance book club.

Not a class. Not technically.

No aprons. No clay. No counting steps in front of strangers.

Books were different. Books were safe. Books had structure. Books attracted people who understood language, subtext, longing, symbolism, and ideally, basic communication.

Nora appeared at her shoulder. “What did you find?”

“Nothing.”

Nora looked at the flyer and smiled slowly.

Paige narrowed her eyes. “Do not look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you just heard wedding bells in a bookstore.”

“I said nothing.”

“You said it with your eyebrows.”

Harper came over next, then Clara, then Sophie. Within seconds, all four of them were staring at the flyer as if it had been delivered by fate personally.

“No,” Paige said.

Sophie blinked innocently. “No one said anything.”

“You are all thinking very loudly.”

Clara read the flyer. “Romance book club. That sounds perfect for you.”

“It sounds quiet,” Harper said.

“And seated,” Nora added.

“And unlikely to involve dough,” Sophie said.

Paige looked back down at the flyer.

Romance book club.

She imagined a room lined with shelves, warm lamps, thoughtful conversation. Maybe a man with glasses and excellent opinions about emotional growth. Maybe someone who read women authors without expecting applause. Maybe someone who could say the word “feelings” without looking like he had been asked to assemble furniture without instructions.

She folded the flyer once and slipped it into her purse.

Nora grinned.

Paige held up a hand. “This is not a class.”

“Of course not,” Nora said.

“And I am not chasing love.”

“Obviously.”

“And if there are no emotionally literate men there, I am blaming all of you.”

Clara lifted her glass. “Fair.”

Across the room, Elliot called for everyone to come try dessert. The couples drifted toward the kitchen, laughing, reaching for plates, leaning into each other’s warmth.

Paige stayed by the entry table for one more second.

She touched the edge of the flyer through her purse.

Maybe she was not ready to dance, sculpt, bake, or be publicly humiliated in the name of romance.

But books were different.

Men who read had to exist somewhere.

And if they were emotionally literate, reasonably attractive, and hiding in bookstores, Paige Bennett was willing to turn a page.